>"My thesis about the Clinton scandals relates a great deal to the
>evolution of political culture and the political class in this
>country," Toobin says with zeal. "Like any storyteller, I love a
>good irony. And basically what happened is part of a larger
>development that is regrettable, I think: that the political left in
>this country, using Thurgood Marshall's work as a model, started
>using litigation as substitute for other political action. This was
>done on behalf of the civil rights movement, of feminism, of
>environmentalism, and they had some tremendous successes, but they
>paid a political price, because instead of mobilizing large
>constituencies behind their work, all they had to do was persuade a
>few judges. And that was a problem. First, because some of these
>victories turned out to be politically rather hollow, but more
>importantly, as far as this story is concerned, they created a
>template for the right wing to follow. And that's the irony. It was
>the Democrats who created the use of civil lawsuits for political
>gain, it was the Democrats who sponsored the independent counsel
>law, and here was the right wing, in the Paula Jones case and in the
>Starr investigation, using it almost to topple the presidency and
>overturn the results of an election."